


Over and Over

by doc



Category: The Mentalist
Genre: Drabble, Gen, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-21
Updated: 2012-09-21
Packaged: 2017-11-14 18:07:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/518051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doc/pseuds/doc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He likes to think he's smart. And if not smart, at least terribly clever. [2010]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Over and Over

“Where do you sleep at night, anyway?” Van Pelt asks, running a hand through long, too-red-to-be-natural hair. Her fingers stop midway as she wonders if she’s being impolite (or implying all the wrong things). Can’t have that. 

She looks like she’s halfway between an apology and further, much-needed explanations when Jane smiles slightly and says, “In a dumpster, out back.”

She smiles, too, but only because she’s glad that he didn’t misunderstand her, not because she realizes he’s joking. She’d explain the real intent of her question further if given the chance, Jane knows, so he simply gets up, cup of cold tea in hand, and makes for the door.

He knows there’s no real intent behind the question other than Van Pelt’s own kindly, though misguided, concerns. But he doesn’t want to answer her (that’d lead to a whole slew of unwanted questions about his self) and he certainly doesn’t want to play with her, at least not today.

But wouldn’t it be funny if he really did sleep in a dumpster? 

 

— 

He likes to think he’s smart.

(And if not smart, at least terribly clever.)

 

—  
  
  


“I had that dream again,” Jane says, something of an afterthought, on the couch in Lisbon’s office.

He’s looking more through her than at her lately and it makes her nervous (though she’d never admit it). Lisbon immediately smiles (because it has to be a joke), pretends she’s only half-interested, and slyly glances up at him (because, shit, she wouldn’t be caught dead catching those eyes for more than just a moment nowadays).

“The one with Cho?” she jokes, hoping to alleviate the mood and go back to what they were discussing earlier. What were they discussing earlier? Something to do with their case, she’s certain (she looks down at the files in front of her, unorganized and sprawled out over her desk). But she knows where he’s going with this, all the same.

When she does catch his eyes he smiles to placate her.

Lisbon starts to think that maybe she should say something comforting, but is afraid it will sound disingenuous (she likes to pretend she doesn’t care a bit too much, more than she knows she should), so she instead brings up something from their case; what he thinks about one of their suspects, that nutjob girl who’s afraid that her dreams slaughtered all those people (now she realizes where his thoughts started to diverge). Whether intentional or not (she thinks most likely the former, because _Jane knows everything_ ) he takes her bait and drops his original subject in favor of a more...tolerable one.

Lisbon doesn’t like it when he talks about that dream.

  
  
  
— 

 

He once told Lisbon he was afraid he might be Red John.

He was only joking.

But, oh, wouldn’t it be funny if he was Red John?

  
  
  
—

 

He has a knife and is chopping away at strange, already dead bodies on the floor of someone’s house. He can feel everything, the weight of the weapon in his hands, sticky and slick with sweat and blood until it’s almost ungraspable; the impact it has as it slices through skin, muscle, bone; the gore as it soaks into the fabric of his pants, splatters across his face, makes it impossible to see what he feels he’s compelled to do by who-the-fuck-knows-what.

The floor is so wet with blood that he can barely kneel in one place without sliding. But still he continues on and on and on...

...until he wakes up.

It isn’t until the second time he dreams this that Jane realizes that the corpses are his own wife and child.

Jane dreams of horrible things at night when he’s asleep.

  
  
  
— 

He’s by his desk in the back, watching a window that isn't open enough to show anything but its own blinds, thinking that maybe he’s too much like Red John than he wants to admit, when Lisbon comes up behind him.

She sort of hovers, not sure whether to approach, not sure whether to touch him, afraid and uncertain and too damned stubborn.

(It makes him both annoyed and relieved.)

“You know,” she begins, watching him with apprehensive eyes (but, Jesus, weren’t they beautiful eyes when she believes so obstinately that she’s right?), “They’re just dreams, Jane.” She sort of smiles then, licks her lips, wants to touch him and offer some sort of comfort. She settles for grabbing his elbow loosely. “You’re not like him.” Jane knows she wants to shake him out of it (quite literally), because it sort of freaks her the hell out when he draws comparisons to Red John and himself.

He wants to tell her so many things, but he can’t, because he’s too damned stubborn.

He feels for her hand and her fingers and intertwines them with his own before shrugging her off. Jane smiles at her; not placating, just a smile.

No, he’s very much like Red John and it’s funny because it’s like he’s chasing after himself over and over, again and again.


End file.
